Lifeboat Foundation

SpaceX is poised to conduct a wet dress rehearsal of the Starship launch system from its Starbase site in southeastern Texas, a major milestone in CEO Elon Musk’s quest to turn long-haul interplanetary transportation from science fiction to reality.

It’s the strongest signal yet that Starship’s first orbital flight test could well and truly be imminent. The wet dress is a critical series of prelaunch tests that includes propellant loading of both the upper stage and booster, and a run-through of countdown to around T-10 seconds, or just before engine ignition. If no major issues crop up during the testing, the next step would be “de-stacking,” or the separation of the Starship second stage and Super Heavy booster. That would be followed by a full static fire test, where engineers would light up all 33 of the booster’s Raptor 2 engines. The launch system would then be re-stacked before the first orbital flight test.

This could all take place in a matter of weeks — March is not off the table for the orbital flight test — but that’s assuming that everything goes well and no major mishaps take place (they’re not unheard of). It also assumes that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the body that regulates commercial launches, issues SpaceX the all-important launch license fairly soon. The FAA has been basically mum about the status of its evaluation of SpaceX’s plans, though it’s been conducting extensive assessments of the Starship launch program for some time.

Elon Musk said the private space firm has “a real shot at late February” for the orbital launch of Starship.

We might finally see SpaceX’s Starship soar to orbit next month. SpaceX’s orbital launch of its fully reusable Starship rocket is arguably the most exciting upcoming space mission of the year. And we may not have to wait very long to see it take to the skies.

Starship could fly to orbit for the first time as soon as late February, though March is more likely, according to an update from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk via Twitter.

Continue reading “SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket could soar to orbit as soon as next month” »

Papers:
Black Hole Energy.

Penrose process for a charged black hole in a uniform.
magnetic field https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.15010.pdf.

Continue reading “What Constitutes Real Starships?” »

A SpaceX Dragon capsule is being modified on orbit to carry an extra astronaut home to Earth if need be.

On Wednesday (Jan. 18), NASA plans to start moving agency astronaut Frank Rubio’s seat liner from a Russian Soyuz spacecraft over to Endurance, the Dragon spacecraft that’s flying SpaceX’s ongoing Crew-5 mission for NASA.

The new modification was made following a coolant leak in a Russian Soyuz rocket attached to the International Space Station.

NASA modified the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance capsule, which is currently attached to the International Space Station (ISS).

The crew capsule now features another seat and can carry one more NASA astronaut than was originally intended, a NASA blog post reveals.

We’ve still got a long way to go.

Scientists found that solar sails, not rockets, could be the best option to return materials mined from asteroids back to Earth.

Through a $57 million contract with NASA, ICON, a company out of Austin, is working to do just that. ICON wants to put a broad spectrum of infrastructure on the moon, which isn’t the easiest place to build.

“First of all, you need to be able to protect the astronauts from the lunar environment which is really a nasty place to live and work. Vacuumed environment, extreme temperature swings, radiation environment, micro-meteoroids, dust protection,” Clinton said. “To produce things like landing pads and roads and blast shields and shelters and habitats.”

Continue reading “Texas-based 3D printing company teaming up with NASA to put buildings on the moon” »

Will the supersonic Dream Chaser soon be competing with Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin in the space-tourism race? That’s the plan—eventually.

Sierra Space is developing the Dream Chaser as the world’s “first and only winged commercial spaceplane.” The aircraft is designed to take off atop a rocket, and then return to Earth on its own wings, landing itself much as the original space shuttle designs.

The radical spaceplane will use New Mexico’s Spaceport America as part of a global network for takeoff and landing with “high-value” payloads.

The first launch of SpaceX’s massive rocket, called Starship, could be coming soon. The company shared a series of photos highlighting the vehicle’s progress ahead of its highly anticipated test flight.

Starship consists of two major components: a massive first-stage booster called the “Super Heavy” and an upper stage known as “Starship.” In typical SpaceX fashion, both aspects of the craft are designed to be fully reusable.